They got nothin. Do you think Rove and Libby would have let Miller and Cooper talk to the grand jury if they had something to hide? Karl is just toying with Fitzgerald. He's probably having a good laugh at all this.
Not that I think Fitzgerald won't try to get an inditement. He's another sleazy political prosecutor just like Ronnie Earl. But he's got nothin.
Her Covert status? This guy must be an idiot!
What country was she spying in? Fairyland!?
Whole article is speculative, they should come out and say so.
OOPS!
subtittle: "Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement"
I should have lead with the subtitle, don't know how I accidently inserted it into the column.
But my own "oops" aside, the two reporters seem a little piqued they don't have more to add to their indictment of Rove and Livvy. I mean, it's old news, and totally irrelevant to remind readers that White House spokesman McClellan didn't initially level with reporters. What they gonna do, tar and feather him or just continue the whine?
I'll re-read the column, but for starters I can't see this re-re-rehash adds anything to the mix.
This week?
She's a freaking joke same as her husband. She's no top secret Mata Hari spy doing field work. I'm as much a CIA spy as she is. She sits on her butt in the CIA putting in her time for her Federal gubbermint pension. Same as a lot of the other dead wood we have there. And no way is she making less than 100 thou a year
President subtittle ?
WTF?
They got squat and they know it. Miller didn't go to jail for Libby... she went to jail for the real source.
Talk about a misleading headline !
He will go on in the report, I believe, and suggest, perhaps directly but probably only by implication, that the law should be changed so that the kind of discussions by Rove and Libby would be criminal in the future.
Why no indictments? Because it doesn't appear that Rove or Libby had the state of knowledge and intent required to violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
But what about conspiracy? Well, to prove conspiracy there must be a predicate crime as the object of the conspiracy. Discrediting or retaliating against Wilson is not a crime (actually it's the patriotic duty of all good Americans, LOL!), and there was no illegal leak. Further, there can have been no conspiracy to slander Wilson or his wife because there was nothing untruthful leaked, and as we know truth is an absolute defense in a defamation case.
What about bringing indictments against journalists who may be setting up Rove or Libby, or who may have obstructed or lied in Fitzgerald's investigation? Would never happen. A US Attorney with political aspirations, especially a Democrat, will never go after members of the MSM.
The three possibilities set forth by POWERLINE in Post #29 above are good analysis, but we can eliminate alternative #2 from our thinking right off the bat. The subpoena under which she was required to testify was limited to the Plame matter. Her lawyers are not idiots, there is no way on earth they would let Fitzgerald start going off on her under oath about a completely different case. Folks, it could never happen.
I think there are only two plausible scenarios consistent with what we know so far.
1. Miller didn't know about Plame before talking to Libby, and went to jail simply so she would be known forever after as "Saint Judy, First Amendment Martyr" and get back in the graces of her liberal buddies at the NYT. A variation of this is that it wasn't her idea to go to jail, but she got bullied into by Abrams (who will fight his First Amendment battles to the last journalist!) and her bosses at the NYT. Then Bob Bennett came in and talked sanity to her. Why did she stay the extra week and a half in jail? She and her lawyers wanted the agreement limiting the scope of questioning, which was no big deal, but it does take a few days for these things for the lawyers to review, agree any changes, sign off, etc.
2. Miller knew about Plame before talking to Libby, and perhaps she was part of a number of conversations among other journalists or other administration or CIA or State people discussing Plame. She was concerned that she could have been asked HOW she knew about Plame and didn't want to open that can of worms. In this scenario, the agreement limiting scope of questioning WAS a big deal, and getting this is what made her comfortable going before the Grand Jury.
I think eventually more facts of the case will dribble out and we will learn whether the foregoing #1 or #2 was really the case.
August 13, 2004
snip
Cooper and Pincus are joined in the current legal conflict because each wrote a story in summer 2003 that referred to government officials who had named Valerie Plame as a spy. It can be a crime to intentionally reveal the name of an undercover CIA agent. Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald believes the reporters can lead him to the government official who leaked Plame’s name.
The two reporters also join up in the Washington social scene. Cooper and his wife, Clintonista Mandy Grunwald, occasionally find themselves at dinner parties with Pincus and his wife, Ann, who’s director of public affairs for the Center for Public Integrity. She was close to the late Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
Both Pincuses go way back with former executive editor Ben Bradlee and his wife, writer and socialite Sally Quinn. TV talking head Margaret Carlson is a mutual friend of the Pincuses and the Cooper-Grunwalds.
snip
Walter Pincus worked for Army intelligence after college and investigated foreign-government lobbying for a Senate committee before becoming a reporter. He’s been reporting on nuclear weapons since the 1970s. He’s known former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix since 1959. His sources in the intelligence and scientific communities are plentiful and deep.
Earlier this year Pincus answered a subpoena to testify in the investigation of former weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee. He was deposed by prosecutors. “I took the journalist’s privilege 117 times,” he says. In other words, he didn’t answer any questions that would reveal sources.
“I believe journalists can be called to testify before a grand jury and civil cases, too,” Pincus says. “It’s a responsibility of a citizen to respond to subpoenas. I don’t think reporters should get a total pass.”
He adds: “I am perfectly willing to appear, but I will not answer any questions that would give away a source. There’s a big difference between being called and answering questions.”
snip
“Because we know the questions he [Fitzgerald] wants to ask,” Pincus says. “We’ve been in discussion for six weeks.”
In that time prosecutors hunting for someone who might have committed a crime by revealing Plame’s name have interviewed NBC’s Tim Russert and earlier in the summer the Post’s Glenn Kessler. Both agreed to answer a limited number of questions concerning their interviews with Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby gave them permission to talk to the prosecutors, so they were not breaking a promise to keep a source confidential.
Is maintaining a source’s confidentiality worth spending time behind bars?
“Yes,” says Pincus. “That’s what the privilege is all about.”
For the last few months all I have read is how Rove never revealed her name or role at CIA and now I read that Libby was pretty much the same. Why are these left wing headhunters wasting my eyes?
Another outstanding FReeper thread. Must read bump!